Jack Campbell: Leviathan

“Too fast,” Desjani grumbled. As objects accelerated to fractions of the speed of light, their visions of the universe outside them became increasingly warped by the effects of relativity. They no longer saw things where they were. Human ingenuity, always at its best when it came to working on ways to war with other humans, had managed to counter those effects somewhat. At velocities up to point two light speed, human-designed fire-control systems, sensor systems, and maneuvering systems could compensate enough for the distortion to allow hits on other ships as they flashed past at incredible velocities. Beyond that, accuracy fell off dramatically with every increase in velocity.

“That’s why I sent out twenty-seven destroyers and eleven light cruisers,” Geary said. “Even if most of their shots miss, there should be enough shots being fired to score some hits.”

Several minutes ago, the Alliance destroyers and light cruisers had raced downward past the dark ships at a high angle, their automated fire-control systems hurling out hell lances, ball bearings (still known as grapeshot) if the range was close enough, and specter missiles from the light cruisers. Automated systems had to be used because humans could not possibly aim and fire in the tiny fraction of a second during which the forces were within weapons range of each other.

The dark destroyers fired back with implacable and emotionless precision, but their fire-control systems were just as hindered by the velocity of the engagement as those of the human-crewed ships. Even though each dark destroyer carried as much armament as a human-crewed light cruiser, there were still only five of them against thirty-eight of Geary’s ships.

The Alliance squadrons plummeted away from the encounter, turning back upward but unable to alter course quickly enough to engage the dark battle cruisers and heavy cruiser that rocketed past above them. Geary watched red markers appear on some of the Alliance warships, indicating hits from the dark destroyers. But aside from two blows that had knocked out some of the weapons on the light cruiser Croise , Geary’s ships had taken only minor damage.

But only two of the dark destroyers had emerged from the encounter still on their trajectories toward the screening force. Two others had been knocked off course and were tumbling helplessly, maneuvering systems too badly damaged to control the ships. The fifth had tried to stagger onward after the first two, but several specter missiles fired by the Alliance light cruisers had swung through tight turns to slam into the stern of the dark ship. It vanished in a flare of light and heat, leaving an endlessly expanding ball of dust where it had been.

“Still accelerating,” Desjani commented, displaying no elation at the damage done to the hostile forces. The two surviving dark destroyers were pushing their velocity higher, which would make targeting them even harder for the Alliance warships in the screen. “What’s Armus doing?” she grumbled in a voice too low for anyone but Geary to hear.

“He’s setting them up,” Geary said. “ Warspite , Vengeance , and Resolution are holding fixed orbits, so anything aiming to intercept them will have to come down a predictable path.”

“Oh.” Desjani grinned. “Sorry, sir. Battle cruiser captain here. I tend to think in terms of maneuvering.”

“Whereas Captain Armus knows battleships and thinks in term of forts and firepower,” Geary said.

If the dark ships had attempted to dodge, to simply tear through the thin screen of widely spread Alliance ships, they would almost certainly have succeeded in making it through intact. If the Alliance ships had not guessed that the dark ships intended to ram, they would have faced a difficult fire-control solution for their weapons. But the two survivors bore down on their targets, one aiming for Warspite and the second for Resolution , and the Alliance fire-control systems only needed to solve for one, simple solution. The two battleships and the remaining Alliance light cruisers and destroyers near them hurled a wall of fire down the bearings along which the dark ship destroyers had to come, and the two destroyers hit those walls and disintegrated under the blows.

Coming on behind, though, were the remaining dark ships, and those were just trying to run through the screen. The two battle cruisers and the trailing heavy cruiser tore past the still-thinly-spread Alliance ships and onward, without any hits being scored on them.

Geary’s jaw tightened as he checked the maneuvering data again. His battle cruisers were still angling in toward the dark ships, but the intercept point was far ahead, past the place where the dark ships would be able to fire upon Ambaru Station.

None of the fixed defenses near Ambaru were showing any signs of alert or alarm. They were all apparently still blind to the presence of the dark ships.

All that lay between the surviving dark ships and Ambaru Station were the sixteen heavy cruisers forming the last defensive barrier.

“How do we stop two battle cruisers like that with sixteen heavy cruisers?” Desjani asked. “If they were typical battle cruisers, we could do it, but the dark ships are not typical.”

Geary indicated the intercept point on his display. “We don’t have to stop them. We just have to push back their time to reach Ambaru and push up the time when we get within range of the dark ships.”

“Make them maneuver off a straight shot at Ambaru?” She nodded, then tapped a symbol. “The heavy cruiser formations are under Commander Rosen. What do you know about her?”

“That she’s commander of the First Heavy Cruiser Division,” Geary said, “as well as commanding officer of the Tanko . And that in previous engagements she has shown a tendency to hit hard.”

“Then you need to realize that when you send Rosen after those dark ships, she’s not going to just dance around,” Desjani said. “She’s going to go after them and try to land some hard blows.”

“Rosen has seen the data on how heavily armed those dark battle cruisers are.”

“And she’s going to try to hit them hard,” Desjani repeated.

“I know,” Geary said. “That’s the idea.” He saw her surprise, then the dawning realization. “Because,” he went on, “I wouldn’t do that, throwing heavy cruisers against battle cruisers in a head-on fight. I’d order a feint, and a diversion. Something to fool my opponent into doing what I want, which in this case would obviously be to throw those dark ships off a direct vector toward Ambaru.”

“Even if you fool the dark ships,” Desjani cautioned, “that won’t fool their fire-control systems or prevent them targeting any heavy cruisers that close to firing range.”

“Hopefully, I’ve got a solution to that as well. You know how our fire-control systems are programmed. They prioritize targets based on threat and on the highest hit probability.” He touched his comm controls. “Commander Rosen, this is Admiral Geary. Your orders are to try to stop those dark ships. Get in close enough to hammer them. Try to knock out their main propulsion or maneuvering systems. My estimate is that they will not attempt to evade a firing run by you but will hold their vectors, assuming that you are conducting a feint. Set up your formations and attacks so that two leading heavy cruisers in each of your formations will clearly represent the highest hit probabilities for the fire-control systems on the dark ships and have those two heavy cruisers do last-second evasive maneuvers to throw off enemy targeting on them. I’m trusting your skill in this, Commander, as well as the skill of each cruiser commander. Geary, out.”